Senate Adopts Textile-shoe Protection Bill

November 14, 1985|By United Press International

WASHINGTON — The Senate, in a signal to the White House that it wants a more aggressive trade policy, Wednesday approved a bill to protect the U.S. textile and shoe industries from competition by cheap imports.

The bill would cut imports from the three largest exporters -- Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong -- and limit future growth of all textile and clothing imports. It now goes back to the House, and a committee likely will be set up to work out differences with the House version.

The Senate bill limits shoe imports to 60 percent of the U.S. market. The House bill does not have a shoe provision.

Senators passed the bill by 60 to 39, seven votes short of the two-thirds needed to override a veto.

Before the vote, Senate Republican Leader Robert Dole of Kansas said he would support the bill, which President Reagan has opposed as protectionist and has threatened to veto.

''I still hope some stern measures will be taken by this administration between the time it passes and the time it comes back'' to the Senate from a veto, Dole said.

At the White House, a spokesman said after the vote, ''Our position has not changed. The president continues to oppose all protectionist bills.''

Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., a key sponsor of the textile provisions, said he had hoped Reagan would change his mind about vetoing it.

''Unless something is done to stop these massive imports, you won't have a textile industry,'' Thurmond said. ''What I'm talking about is jobs -- jobs for Americans.''

After voting overwhelmingly to take up the textile quota bill early Wednesday -- breaking a logjam that had tied the Senate in knots for months -- supporters then knocked down a series of weakening amendments in fast

The Senate did approve one significant amendment, calling for the president to negotiate a voluntary export restraint agreement on copper, another American industry hard hit by import competition.

Reagan had said in a letter to Sen. Daniel Evans, R-Wash., one of the leading opponents of the bill, ''I will not . . . sign any protectionist legislation that diminishes competition abroad or here in the United States.'' The president did not specifically mention the textile bill.

Duncan Dwelle, president of the American Fair Trade Council of retailers and importers who oppose the bill, said passage would mark ''a very sad day for consumers and taxpayers'' by increasing clothing prices by up to 50 percent and adding more government protection to an industry that already is protected heavily.

On a voice vote, the Senate rejected an amendment by Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., chairman of the trade subcommittee, to weaken support for the textile bill by proposing stiffer enforcement of trade sanction laws.

''Special legislation and quotas is not the course we should be following,'' Danforth said. ''Remedies exist. We should use them.''

The Senate voted 60 to 39 against an amendment from Sen. Max Baucus, D- Mont., to exempt from textile import quotas any country that bought more than $400 million of U.S. agricultural products.

''We cannot solve the textile problem on the back of American agriculture,'' Baucus said, arguing that other nations would retaliate against the United States by turning elsewhere for agricultural products at a time when American farmers already are suffering.

The Senate also turned down by 62 to 37 a less stringent amendment to prohibit the president from enforcing the quotas if there was any evidence it would jeopardize American farm exports.

It also defeated by 68 to 30 an amendment by Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, to exempt Hong Kong from the quota limits on the grounds it practices freer trade than the United States and should not be punished.

The bill would cut textile imports by up to 30 percent from Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong, and freeze imports at last year's volume for the next nine textile exporters. Imports from all 12 countries would be permitted to grow by 1 percent in both 1986 and 1987.

Smaller exporting countries would be allowed more generous export quotas. Canada and Western Europe, whose more expensive exports do not threaten the U.S. industry, would be exempt.